Literary Transnationalism and Diasporic History

This chapter examines the literary imagination of prominent black abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who was born free in Baltimore in 1825 and traveled extensively in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic states in the 1850s to deliver antislavery and racial uplift lectures. Watkins Harper was a regular contributor to the short-lived Anglo-African Magazine, for which she wrote a series of sketches in 1859–1860 under the pseudonym Jane Rustic. Her “Fancy Sketches” consist of parlor conversations among friends concerning the status of African Americans. Her critique highlights the centrality of the African diaspora in African American thought in antebellum America. Her self-conscious literary transnationalism set her apart from other black women activists devoted to the cause of abolitionism. This chapter looks at the impulses that might have led Watkins Harper to write the “Fancy Sketches” at a time of intense debate over the issues of slavery and race within the nation, the black community, and abroad.

Abolitionism · Art · Art history · Diaspora · Literature · Political science · Politics · Pseudonym · Race (biology) · Sociology · Theology · Transnationalism · Gender Studies · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society

• Don’t Be Too Careful of Your Silks and Rags”

  Open Access•Laura Smith•Literature Compass•2012

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